The invention relates to an integrated and compact device making it possible to carry out qualitative and quantitative identification of one or of a plurality of physicochemical entities contained in a fluid, and to do this instantaneously.
It is increasingly being sought to be able to carry out instantaneous analysis of fluid, liquid or gas samples, that is to say without prior physical or chemical treatment, and without addition of any reagent. The advantage of providing such a possibility can be seen, in particular, in the fields of pollution, toxicology, or, in short, in the field of environmental science, and in general in any field in which the identification of any entity induces the triggering of a certain number of processes. Now, there is currently no device available which can carry out this analysis instantaneously and is capable of being operational for a range of entities which is wide enough to be truly useful.
At the very best there is available a technique employing a device which exploits one or two different wavelengths in the absorption spectrum for measuring the concentration of certain chemical species (see, for example, EP-A-0,399,057). They lead to unsatisfactory results insofar as the number of entities detectable is small, and the concentrations measured are relatively approximate. In parallel, the equipment employed for achieving these measurements is heavy and complex, preventing any on-site measurement.
More conventionally, the devices available consist of measurement chains or acquisition stations, in which each of the parts has its own function, namely detector, monochromator, processing unit. In addition, they all require prior treatment of the liquid or fluid to be analyzed, such as, in particular, separation, in which each of the phases is analyzed independently of the others, allowing, after processing and analysis, reconstruction in terms of quality and concentration of the basic fluid or of the raw fluid.